


The Price

by HappyLeech



Series: MagicWatch [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Limb loss, Magic AU, Non-Discriptive Surgery, One Shot, Supernatural AU - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 00:23:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9853520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyLeech/pseuds/HappyLeech
Summary: This is the story of how Jesse McCree lost his arm





	

Realistically, Jesse knew he was not supposed to be in the room. Hell, he probably wasn’t even supposed to be on that _floor_. And yet, there he was, standing next to Gabriel and listening to Winston explain what was going on.

“—We’ve managed to get her stable enough that she’s returning to one place—this room—but there’s still the issue of finding a way to ground her in this timeline without risking her life.” The gorilla explained, pushing his glasses further up on his face.

“Okay, but why did you ask for me and McCree then?” Gabriel asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose, and Jesse turned to look through the one-way mirror. Sitting at a table and trying but failing to grab hold of a pencil was a woman, looking transparent and grey.

So that’s what he’d meant when he had someone stuck out of time.

“We…need someone to keep her company when she’s here. She’s already expressed doubts that this is real, but I think that if she’s got someone to talk to, she’ll be a lot more stable. And since Jesse is closer to Oxton’s age…” Winston trailed off, and both him and Gabriel turned to Jesse.

“It ain’t gonna take away from working with the boss, right?” he asked, and Winston and Gabriel shared a look.

“It depends. Sometimes she’s here for hours, sometimes days, but then there’s times where we can’t contact her at all. The doctor monitoring her case is also going to be in contact with her, whenever you’re on a mission.” Winston explained, before spinning and motioning to a door. “Why don’t you go say hello? You’ll be on the other side of the glass, but I’m sure she’d be happy to have more company than just me.”

Jesse turned and looked at the one-way mirror again, where the woman had given up on grabbing the pencil and had leaned back to stare at the ceiling, before shrugging.

“Sure.”

* * *

In the months to follow, Jesse and Lena became fast friends. They both had enough stories to tell to keep each other amused and had figured out a few games and activities that didn’t require Lena to try to grab onto things when her hands weren’t cooperating.

So that was why it was so distressing when, one day when Jesse was on his way to the mess for something before returning to watch another hour or three of youtube videos, Winston pulled him aside.

“Jesse, I’ve got some bad news for Lena, so can you stick around after? I…think she’s going to need a friend,” the gorilla said, and Jesse knew that if he could, he’d be biting at his nails.

“Sure thing—what’s wrong?” he asked, and Winston only shook his head and waved him away.

By the time he returned—having stolen at least 5 pudding cups from the mess for Winston and Lena—Winston was sitting by his desk with his head in his hands and Lena was a sobbing mess at her table.

Jesse silently set the pudding cups on the desk, before walking into his section of Lena’s room.

“Hey there, Space-Trace,” He said quietly, sliding into his chair on the other side of the glass. “What’s gone wrong?”

“Winston…he doesn’t think he can save me,” came the teary reply, and god did Jesse wish he could give her a hug. “He—he said the tech is sound, but it’s not connecting right. He thinks something’s gone screwy since I’ve been—“ The tears started again, and it was all that Jesse could do to not demand that Winston let him in the room with her.

“Hey, no, that just ain’t right. Winston’s a smart guy, he’ll probably know what to do.”

* * *

“I have no idea what to do.”

Jesse, Gabriel, Strike Commander Morrison, the doctor, and Captain Amari were all sitting in front of Winston and another scientist that Jesse, to be honest, didn’t know as Winston paced the best he could.

“The technology is sound, but it’s not adapting to Lena. I almost think that, because of how long she’s been outside of a stable time stream, her body isn’t…human enough for it to work.”

“So, what can we do?” Morrison asked, his arms crossed but tense enough that Jesse was sure the floor was shaking from the force of him jiggling his leg. “I refuse to just let her stay trapped in that room.”

“I know that, Strike Commander, Sir, but I am out of ideas. Unless we can find someone—“

“I know someone we can talk to.” Jesse turned as Captain Amari stood, sliding her hands into her pockets. “I’ll need someone to go with me, though, and they only deal with shifters. Can I borrow your boy, Gabe?”

“I—“ Now Jesse turned his attentions to Gabriel, and tried to make his eyes as wide as possible. “—damnit Jesse, you can just ask to go with Ana. Goddamn puppy eyes…”

Someone, either the other scientist or the doctor, laughed at that, and—yep, even Morrison had a grin on his face.

“McCree—I want you dressed and ready to go in 15. Winston, go tell that poor girl that we have a plan. I’ll meet you on the tarmac after I grab a few things from Lindholm. You’re okay with that, aren’t you Jack?”

He raised his hands in mock-defeat. “Your show now, Ana.”

“Well, what are you waiting for, McCree—Amari told you to get going, so get going!” Jesse jumped, looked at Gabriel, before bolting. He didn’t know what he’d need to do, but if it was going to help Lena, he was going to do whatever he could.

* * *

Whatever he could do ended up being racing across the Southern States with Amari—“call me Ana”—looking for a certain magic user. They were, as Ana had claimed, well versed in alternative magics and might know of something she could use to ground Lena.

“I need to talk to them first, and hopefully they won’t want anything substantial to teach me what I need to know.” Ana had called to him from the skies, in between directing him to change course and avoid human travelers.

“What do you mean?” he’d called back, shaking after a chilled swim across a river. “Didn’t the Strike Commander give you money for this?”

A hawk cry from the sky echoed, Ana laughing before she answered. “No—they only deal in shifters because they use their fur and feathers and such in potions. All to lessen the symptoms for those who’ve been made into shifters by magic or curses, so I figure some feathers, some of your fur, maybe a little of my blood and we’ll be set.”

* * *

Of course, things weren’t so easy.

Finding the magic user—another shifter who’d been turned by magic—proved to be difficult, taking at least a week of hunting by Jesse’s estimation. Then there were the masks—a wolf one for him and a hawk one for her, interlaced with iron and smelling strongly of Lindholm’s magic.

Once they knew where the magic user was, approaching them was the easiest part of the operation.

“No. Absolutely not.” Jesse stood, back to the wall and hand on his gun, as Ana argued with the shifter over payment. It was steeper than either of them had expected, and Ana was having none of it.

“Look, I’m not going to teach you this for something as paltry as some feathers. This is pretty major magic, so I want some pretty major compensation. You understand, don’t you?” The person on the other side of the counter said, crossing their arms and staring into the matte eyes of the masks.

“I’m not giving up a wing for something I can learn from someone else—“ she snapped back, bite in her voice, and Jesse shifted. Things were going to get nasty before they got better if something didn’t change.

And something changed when Ana turned on her heel and motioned to him. “Come on—I am not dealing with this person any longer. We’ll find someone else to help—“

“Sorry lady, but I’m the only one around who can do this. There’s rumours of someone in Japan with the skill, but that’s just rumour. So it’s my way or the highway.” They smiled at Ana, and she growled in reply.

“Does it have to be her?” Jesse interrupted whatever Ana was going to spit out at the person, and motioned to himself. “I mean, I’m a shifter too.”

Ana’s cry of “don’t you dare” and the magic users question of “so, what are you?” battled to be understood, and Jesse just shook his head. He knew that Gabriel would have his hide for this if he was here, but if it was going to help Lena, well…

“I’m a coyote,” Jesse replied, shrugging and ignoring the strangled noise that Ana made at the admission.

“Bullshit—prove it.” The mage said, their eyes gleaming. “I haven’t seen a coyote shifter in—well, ever.”

“Do not—“ Ana hissed, but Jesse just shook his head.

“Sorry Ma’am, but I think this is something important. Hope pops will forgive me for this, though,” he said, before shifting.

Shifting was easy, painless, and over within a moment. The pain that came after, however, was a different story.

The mage had to look Jesse over, not quite believing that Jesse was a coyote until Jesse snapped at him for daring to think of him as a wolf, before nodding and agreeing that yes, he was what he said.

“This is idiotic—“ Ana hissed as Jesse and her walking into the mages back room, and she sighed as he jumped onto the table. “I can't convince you not to do this?”

“No offense, Ma’am, but she's a great friend and you heard the boss—she can't just live in that room,” he yipped, tail slowly thumping on the metal table as he sat. “And what if we need this later for someone else? It’s better to have the skill now, right?”

Ana sighed and leaned back against the wall of the back room. “Are you just repeating something your father told you? Because I was probably the one who told him that first.”

Before Jesse could scramble to deny that he considered Gabriel a father despite calling him pops, the mage walked back in, a circular saw in their arms.

“Since you’re a coyote, I’m not going to take the whole limb. There’s probably enough magic in what would be your forearm to help me help a hundred others.” They pressed a button, and the saw began to buzz. “What side?”

“Left,” Jesse replied, whined, before feeling something jab into his hip. “Goddamnit!”

“I’m not letting him suffer while you remove part of his body,” Ana snapped before the mage could say anything, and that’s when the drugs kicked in.

It was almost like he was watching a movie, something happening to someone else, as the saw cut through the joining point between what the head doctor at the watchpoint called his radius and humerus. The pain he felt was numbed by whatever it was that Ana had injected him with, but the numbness faded fast as he bled onto the table.

“Here—“ Jesse could faintly hear the mage talking to Ana, and whined and yipped as the feeling returned and it went from pleasantly numb to sharp and biting. “—you obviously know your way around medical situations. Bandage him up, and I’ll teach you what I know.”

“Fu—do you have any clean bandages, then?” Ana snapped, before catching the wad of cloth with one hand. “These better not cost us extra.”

Laying there and panting in pain as Ana wrapped his leg, Jesse found that he didn’t mind it as much once Ana hit him with another of her drug-and-sleep darts in the thigh. His eyes didn’t want to stay open to watch Ana learn how to weave the magic into a globe that would ground Lena into place, but he figured that Ana wouldn’t mind if he had a small nap...

* * *

“You dumbass—Gabriel is going to have my head when we get back,” Ana hissed, again, as they sat in their seats, ready to fly back to Spain. Jesse had his stump, a word that should make him feel as giddy as it did, bandaged and he was very heavily drugged.

“Nah,” he mumbled. “Pops wouldn’t.”

“Fareeha is going to be so mad at you for lying to her,” she continued, and Jesse snickered. “Don't you laugh! You said you'd be back in one piece, and look at you!”

“Prolly… ‘s okay though. It’ll help Lena, right?”

“Morrison is going to have my job,” she pointed out grimly.

“It was my decision—if anything I’ll take the blame,” he countered.

“But…Lena will be able to get out of that damned room,” Ana finished, and Jesse nodded, before not so gracefully falling asleep on her shoulder.

* * *

Getting back to Gibraltar and into the Watchpoint was an adventure. They'd flown commercial, it wasn't an official mission, so the pair of them limping, so to speak, back caused a small stir.

“Ana! How was it!” Reinhardt was the first person to greet them, sweeping up Ana in a hug.

“It was—Look, can you get Jack, Gabe, and Torbjorn into the med bay,” she replied as she wiggled out of his grip, and for a minute Jesse wondered why they needed to go to the med bay when Lena was in the science wing. “The price was steeper than expected, and Jesse paid it.”

Luckily for Jesse, the giant of a man, but not a literal Giant, didn’t ask for details, instead ushering them along to the med bay as he went to find the requested.

This was where things got fuzzy for Jesse though.

He remembered the doctor’s aghast face as he was stripped of his shirt and chest armour and pressed back onto the stretcher, how angry Morrison sounded, a half-muffled complaint from Torbjorn before he was smacked by Ana, and, strangely enough to him, a worried and almost panicked Gabriel.

* * *

When Jesse woke and woke with a clear head, it was four days later.

Ana and Fareeha were in the room, Fareeha napping on the other bed in the room while Ana talked to the doctor, whose name Jesse found he couldn’t remember.

“’M… did it work?” he muttered, and Ana’s eyes snapped to him like a, well, hawk.

“Yes, it did,” she replied, moving to sit next to his bed as the doctor scurried off to let someone, probably Gabriel, know that he was awake. “Lena’s been stable and out of her isolation room for two days now. She’s—“

“Positively _livid_ , you bloody wanker!” the door opened and Lena Oxton, all five foot four of her, stood in the doorway with a vicious glare on her face.

“Hey…Space-Trace,” he managed a grin as she stomped in, before turning his head a little. “Hey there, lil sis…”

“I _hate_ you,” Fareeha hissed, climbing off the other bed and running past Lena. “I’m never buying you anything for Christmas again!”

“Aw, Fareeha,” he muttered, sighing.

“Don’t worry,” Ana interrupted. “She’s already got you your Christmas and birthday gifts. She’s just going to sulk for a little, but I guarantee in two hours she’ll be back and demanding attention.”

“However, I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going to stand here and be bloody pissed at you. What the hell?” Lena waved her hand in a general motion, and Jesse shrugged.

“Didn’t…think you needed…to live in a box forever. Glad I helped,” he managed another grin, and then Lena rushed the bed, grabbing him in a hug.

“Thank you, Jesse,” she said, her voice muffled by his shoulder. “But never, ever do that again.”

“Something I think we all agree with.” This voice came from Morrison, leaning against the door jam with his arms crossed. “You gave your father quite a scare, doing what you did. Gabe, get in here!”

“Wha—“ Before Jesse could question what the hell Morrison was talking about, Gabriel was in the room, looking at him like he had a third eye.

Or perhaps like he had a shiny new metal arm.

“Kid, you scared the ever-loving shit out of me. You know, when I said that Ana could borrow you for this, I did kinda expect her to bring you home in one piece.” He finally said, and Jesse laughed into Lena’s hair. “Also, Amari said you called me pops a couple of times? What the hell, Jesse? Do you want me to start calling you son?”

Jesse groaned, lifting his metal arm, which didn’t hurt as much as he figured it should, and pressing the palm against his forehead.

“Goddamnit.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was in the middle of writing chapter 2 of The Dragon's Hoard and decided that, no, fuck that, I want to write how Jesse lost his arm/leggo
> 
> * * *
> 
> Angela is not part of Overwatch in this AU, so if you're wondering where she is, she's in Japan hanging out with some dragons  
> Genji is also not part of overwatch, as he is one of the dragons in Japan that Angela is hanging out with  
> Nearly everyone is some kind of shifter, giant, or magic user, but not everyone. Fareeha, for one, isn't a hawk like her mother, and despite what people think, Reinhardt is 100% human  
> Ana is a hawk, but also a very, very skilled magic user  
> JESSE MCCREE LOVES HIS FRIENDS  
> Jesse McCree also considered Gabe to be his pop and is embarrassed when it's brought up  
> Gabe is also embarrassed when it's brought up that Jesse thinks of him as a father figure, but he's also really happy and goes to Ana and is like "Do I call him McCree? Jesse? Kid? Son? HEL P"  
> I have so much world building for this universe it's almost embarrassing  
> Jesse gets his tacky belt buckle from Lena a few days later and he refuses to take it off  
> Torbjorn is also a skilled magic user, and he makes any prosthetics/armour needed (Including enchanted stuff, including prosthetics that shift when the wearer shifts)
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/) / [Overwatch Tumblr](http://over-swatch.tumblr.com/) / [TextsFromLastNight Overwatch Tumblr](http://textsfromwatchpointgibraltar.tumblr.com/)


End file.
